Entertainment

Sony nails 'The Interview' at festive, hack-free world premiere

LOS ANGELES — The world premiere of The Interview, the very movie whose existence may or may not be the reason Sony has been viciously and repeatedly hacked of corporate secrets and unflattering emails, was going to be interesting no matter what.

For a studio still punch drunk and staggering, it was interesting for all the right reasons.

Security outside The Theatre at Ace Hotel before the premiere of "The Interview" on December 11.

Image: AFP/Getty Images

The pre-screening reception at the Theater at the Ace Hotel, a gorgeously restored downtown venue that is finding its place in Hollywood's rotation for special events, was packed and lively. Seth Rogen bounced all around the regal, Gaudi-inspired lobby, where the dapper and boisterous crowd lingered long after lights flickered. There was stuff to talk about, and much to decompress.

The incoming storm gave the air an extra crackle, but the rain held off until after the screening. And there was absolutely no need for the extra security called upon to address the 800-pound dictator in the room.

Amy Pascal, Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair, was there, just hours after publicly apologizing and giving interviews in the wake of her racially insensitive emails. She looked poised and comfortable, encircled, as she often is, by friends and fellow filmmakers.

And when Seth Rogen took the stage, he made it a point to thank her by name.

A video posted by NotoriousJLD (@notoriousjld) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:45pm PST

There was a small red carpet set up inside the venue, but it was for photographers only — yes, there were no interviews for The Interview, a wise move by the studio publicity department that would've had no luck holding off questions about the devastating hack. Though they weren't going on the record, Rogen and Franco worked the room almost as hard as they worked their characters in The Interview.

And did they ever.

James Francoand Seth Rogen arrive for the premiere of "The Interview" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, California on December 11, 2014.

Image: AFP/Getty Images

Franco's punchy and naively exuberant celebrity interviewer Dave Skylark is his strongest character since Spring Breakers' Alien — and while that wasn't very long ago, it's a high bar. Skylark's clueless mojo is positively narcotic; he's part Hunter Thompson, part Clouseau and with a dash of Jack Sparrow, but that's over comp-ing what comes off as an altogether fresh vibe from Franco, who is so wildly inappropriate that it's easy to forget he does other stuff besides comedy.

As his more level-minded producer Aaron Rapaport, Seth Rogen once again gets the straight-man role here, but the two play off each other so well, so naturally, that you're laughing as if you're really inside their world, watching this borderline indecent absurdity unravel. Many times over, the crowd went wild with sustained laughter.

It's easy to see why North Korea is not wild about The Interview, however.

Randall Park plays Kim Jung-Un [how it's spelled in the credits] as a suave and complex but emotionally effete master manipulator obsessed with random wings of Western culture; to say much more of him would spoil the fun, but North Korea's real supreme leader will not be inviting Dennis Rodman over to screen this one. And the reclusive country's culture itself does not get away unscathed. Sure, it's a nightmarish dictatorship they're poking fun at here, but those in search of outrage could reasonably find cause for it, if they did enough digging.

It's been written — and was said at the Ace on Thursday night — that The Interview can only benefit from the publicity from the so-called Guardians of Peace hack. And while that's almost certainly true, no amount of outsizing the film's box-office return could possibly make up for the grief and loss the studio has experienced as a result.

But for a company of 6,000 people desperately ready to move on, it would be a good start.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.